Media News

Australian Magazine Industry Harness the Power Of Social Media illustrating the Reach and Engagement of Magazines Hitting almost Five Million in a Day

10 May 2013

The Magazine Publishers of Australia (MPA) members Bauer Media Australia, Pacific Magazines and NewsLifeMedia on 1 May 2013 launched an Australian-first social media initiative to underscore the collective power and reach of mass consumer magazines, on any platform.

The one day social media campaign conducted by the magazine industry on May 1st has been a resounding success, reaching an audience of 4,978,767 people and trending within an hour and continuing to trend nationally for eight hours.

From 10am on May 1st, every one of the publishers' Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest social media accounts, held by magazine titles, editors, publishers and ambassadors, featured a #MagsMoveMe theme, encouraging readers to get involved and share how magazines move and inspire them.

Each magazine, editor and ambassador tweeted, posted and status updated a relevant question to their audience using the #MagsMoveMe theme. Some of the questions posed included ‘What has this magazine moved you to do? Cook something new? Phone your Mum? Try a different dress? Go for a run? Write a list? Be kinder to yourself? Keep up the fitness regime?'

Readers are able respond with their favourite magazine moment, with images, posts and Tweets.

For the 24 hours from 10am on May 1st, the social media initiative achieved the following results*:

The total magazine industry has more than 3+ million social media followers across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest and daily visitors to their websites of over 700,000.

"The results have been astounding and proved in a really compelling way our collective reach, levels of engagement, the strength of magazine brands and the editors' influence and relationship with their audiences," MPA Executive Director Robin Parkes said.

"Social media is still abuzz with the #MagsMoveMe theme as the magazine industry and consumers embrace the concept and share their experiences. Although magazines work across multiple platforms, the initiative also demonstrated that printed magazines remain at the heart and are still the original and relevant community of like-minded people around their chosen topics."

"This Australian and industry first initiative demonstrates a bold, powerful statement of the magazine industry's collective the reach, engagement, motivation and influence and underscores the depth of creativity and imagination on sale every week," MPA Executive Director Robin Parkes said.

Australian Women's Weekly editor-in-chief Helen McCabe said: "The debate about social media's importance to a magazine or a brand is over. The fact is it is absolutely critical. It allows direct communication with the reader which means often a full and frank exchange of ideas and views.

"On AWW we use it to find and research stories and to receive invaluable feedback on everything from our covers to our story selection. It has gone from being something I did occasionally to being a significant part of my job."

Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Edwina McCann agreed. "Vogue Australia has a highly engaged following across our social media landscape. It allows our audience to have conversations with the Vogue team, who provide daily opinion and coverage to increase content freshness and respond to searched trends and themes. Social media makes our industry more accessible and shareable and also provides us with instantaneous feedback to better understand our readers and react accordingly."

Marie Claire publisher and editor Jackie Frank added: "I love using social media as an avenue to express my passion for magazines. It's great to see the industry coming together to show our collective strengths."